Big Megaphone

A big megaphone doesn’t make the message any truer… nor does it make it more important. It just makes the messenger louder.

On January 13, 1999, Michael Jordan announced his retirement from the NBA—for the second time. I worked with Michael on his book, Rare Air, but truthfully, I was too busy working to care about his first retirement—let alone his second.

For me, July 13th ended around 2 a.m. on July 14th with me sitting at my kitchen table, sleep deprived, having just finished concepts I had to present to a new client later that morning.

As I started off to bed I noticed the newspaper headline: MJ RETIRES!!! screaming across the front page. I opened it up and discovered this seemingly important news dominated many inside pages as well.

Eventually I reached a column about truth and the media’s responsibility to deliver it. Even in my sleep-deprived state, this column seemed oxymoronic. As I thought about this, I prepared a cup of chamomile tea, pulled out my journal and started sketching and writing. Like many pages in my journals, this spread seems more relevant today than it did when I made it.

The day MJ retired, President Clinton prepared his State of the Union speech and the Senate chamber closed so cameras could be installed for his impeachment trial. He also sent a check for $850,000 to Paula Jones’ attorney that day to end the sexual harassment lawsuit.

While you might think accusing the president of perjury and obstruction of justice was important news, MJ’s second retirement trumped it.

Further down the news ladder was an article about someone who few Americans knew about or paid much attention to at the time. His name…Osama bin Laden. The small article said the U.S. had hit what it called terrorist training camps in Afghanistan. Officials said they came close to killing the man blamed for bombing two U.S. Embassies in Africa, but he escaped. Interestingly, MJ and Osama bin Laden both came out of retirement in September of 2001.

In rereading this journal entry it became clear—the big headlines were far less important than those little “unimportant” stories tucked deeply away.

I believe this is still the case today—perhaps even more so. When we look back at the current issues—financial bailouts, healthcare reform and so on—we will discover the talking (screaming) heads and big headlines were all focused on the things that matter least.

The most important information is either missing or being whispered somewhere in the background, waiting for a truth seeker to look past the big noise to find it.

Comments